On 9 February 2015, the Divisional Court in the UK referred
questions to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling in the
course of Rosneft's judicial review proceedings challenging UK legislation that
gives effect to EU sanctions against Russia (see previous blog on
an earlier stage of Rosneft's case). A link to the judgment is here.

The Divisional Court (Beatson LJ and Green J) said it was
making a reference to the ECJ because it was necessary in order to resolve the
judicial review, and in the interests of clarity and uniformity of
interpretation. The Court recognised it was unusual to do so while
Rosneft has an application for annulment pending in the General Court, but in
this case it was necessary as:

it could not say with confidence that all courts across the
EU would reach the same conclusions on the interpretation of these sanctions;

there were already differences in interpreting the measures
between competent authorities in different Member States;

a reference would allow for submissions from other Member
States, the Commission and Council; and

since Rosneft's standing to bring an annulment action was in
issue, the General Court might not rule on the merits.

The Court referred the following questions to the Court of
Justice:

Whether the ECJ has the power to review Council decisions
adopted pursuant to the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy;

Whether certain expressions in the sanctions legislation, in
particular "waters deeper than 150 metres" and the word "shale" in the phrase
"projects that have the potential to produce oil from shale formations" are so
unclear as to violate the principle of legal certainty;

Whether the term "financial assistance" includes the
processing of payments, for which authorisation from the competent member state
authority would then be required before being provided to the Claimant;

Whether EU sanctions prohibit the issuing of global
depository receipts in respect of shares issued by the Claimant at any time, or
only those issued after 12 September 2014.

All sanctions currently in force against Russia are in the "sanctions in
force" section of this blog.

End notes

This article first appeared on European Sanctions Law & Practice (http://europeansanctions.com/), a blog by Maya Lester (+44 20 7379 3550, maya.lester@brickcourt.co.uk), a barrister at Brick Court Chambers, and Michael O'Kane (+44 (0) 20 7822 7777 mokane@petersandpeters.com), head of Business Crime at Peters & Peters.